Bill McKibben's “Global Warming's Terrifying New Math” shows that to keep global warming below the tipping point for climate catastrophe of a 2 degree Celsius rise, 80 percent of proven global fossil fuels reserves must remain in the ground and unburned. Those fossil fuel reserves are worth $27 trillion at today's prices. It is inconceivable that 80 percent of fossil fuel reserves will remain unburned as long as they are controlled by profit-seeking corporations, whether privately or state owned. It is therefore time for the climate justice movement and the Left to raise the demand to socialize and democratize the energy sector. This panel will discuss the history, politics, and economics of energy democracy, including the public ownership model developed by US progressives in response to the 1973 energy crisis, the problems of autocratic state-owned oil companies that seek to maximize earnings rather than public and environmental good, and the role a national carbon tax and dividend system that includes carbon border taxes on the carbon content of imports can play in internationalizing energy democracy.

Four documents about socializing and democratizing the energy sector in the United States developed by movements in the 1970s against nuclear power and for affordable energy from solar-derived renewables:

3. "Model State Energy Act" by Lee Webb and Jeff Faux, printed in the Congressional Record, December 18, 1974, at the request of Sen. Lee Metcalf (D-MT). Model_State_Energy_Act__Dec._1974.pdf

4. "The Big Switch: A Plan to Save New York" by Leonard Rodberg and Geoffrey Stokes, Village Voice, February 18, 1980, about solar power through public power in New York City. Two parts: Binder1.pdfBinder2.pdf